SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 6, 2025--
Pleno Inc., an early-stage biotechnology company developing innovative multi-omic solutions, and Slopes Bio, Inc., an innovative high-complexity accredited laboratory, today announced a comprehensive commercial agreement in biological target detection and personalized health. The agreement marks the official commercial launch of Pleno’s RAPTOR™ instrument platform.
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The two companies are collaborating closely on a pilot project to develop an extensible polygenic risk score panel for use in Slopes’ laboratory with more than 400 patient samples processed. Clinical data demonstrated the improved accuracy, target plexity and economics of Pleno’s proprietary Hypercoding™ technology when compared to existing solutions. A white paper with additional detail is to be published shortly.
Under the terms of the agreement, Slopes Bio will purchase up to five RAPTOR instruments and corresponding consumables sufficient to process more than 100,000 samples annually. The first two instruments will be deployed in Slopes' Utah-based production lab beginning later this month.
"This agreement with Slopes Bio helps bring to life our vision of AI-driven precision medicine at scale with RAPTOR," said Dr. Vik Vaz, CEO of Pleno. "An industry leader like Slopes Bio's deployment of multiple RAPTOR instruments in their production lab demonstrates both the commercial viability and the real-world scalability of our platform. Together, we're positioned to transform how the industry approaches high-throughput biological target detection."
The finalized collaboration also extends beyond the current planned instrument deployment. Pleno and Slopes will jointly develop multiple high-sample-volume applications to meet increasing market demand for high plexity, efficient, scalable solutions in personalized health and wellness testing.
"Pleno's RAPTOR technology aligns perfectly with our mission to empower health and wellness innovators with reliable, efficient laboratory services," said Justen Nadauld, CEO of Slopes Bio. "The performance improvements and cost efficiencies enabled by Hypercoding will allow us to scale our operations significantly while maintaining the quality standards our clients expect."
The August 2025 deployment positions both companies to capitalize on the growing demand for high-throughput biological analysis in personalized medicine.
About Pleno Inc.
Pleno Inc. is a San Diego-based biotechnology company developing the RAPTOR™ multi-omic instrument platform to revolutionize biological target detection. Powered by proprietary Hypercoding™ technology, able to detect up to 10,000 targets per sample, RAPTOR simplifies complex multi-omic workflows and delivers unprecedented improvements in performance, cost, and scalability across applications including oncology, pharmacogenomics, genotyping, proteomics, and agrigenomics. For more information visit the website https://plenoinc.com/.
About Slopes Bio, Inc.
Slopes Bio is a high-complexity, accredited laboratory that empowers health and wellness innovators with reliable, efficient, and actionable lab services. From custom assay development to end-to-end testing, kitting, and analytics, Slopes Bio brings personalized health solutions to life.
Photo provided by Pleno Inc.
LONDON (AP) — Laws that will make it illegal to create online sexual images of someone without their consent are coming into force soon in the U.K., officials said Thursday, following a global backlash over the use of Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok to make sexualized deepfakes of women and children.
Musk's company, xAI, announced late Wednesday that it has introduced measures to prevent Grok from allowing the editing of photos of real people to portray them in revealing clothing in places where that is illegal.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the move, and said X must “immediately” ensure full compliance with U.K. law. He stressed that his government will remain vigilant on any transgressions by Grok and its users.
“Free speech is not the freedom to violate consent," Starmer said Thursday. “I am glad that action has now been taken. But we’re not going to let this go. We will continue because this is a values argument.”
The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI and freely accessed through his social media platform X, has faced global scrutiny after it emerged that it was used in recent weeks to generate thousands of images that “undress” people without their consent. The digitally-altered pictures included nude images as well as depictions of women and children in bikinis or in sexually explicit poses.
Critics have said laws regulating generative AI tools are long overdue, and that the U.K. legal changes should have been brought into force much sooner.
A look at the problem and how the U.K. aims to tackle it:
Britain's media regulator has launched an investigation into whether X has breached U.K. laws over the Grok-generated images of children being sexualized or people being undressed. The watchdog, Ofcom, said such images — and similar productions made by other AI models — may amount to pornography or child sexual abuse material.
The problem stemmed from the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall cited a report from the internet Watch Foundation saying the deepfake images included sexualization of 11-year-olds and women subjected to physical abuse.
“The content which has circulated on X is vile. It is not just an affront to decent society, it is illegal,” she said.
Authorities said they are making legal changes to criminalize those who use or supply “nudification” tools.
First, the government says it is fast-tracking provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act making it a criminal offense to create or request deepfake images. The act was passed by Parliament last year, but had not yet been brought into force.
The legislation is set to come into effect on Feb. 6
“Let this be a clear message to every cowardly perpetrator hiding behind a screen: you will be stopped and when you are, make no mistake that you will face the full force of the law,” Justice Secretary David Lammy said
Separately, the government said it is also criminalizing “nudification” apps as part of the Crime and Policing Bill, which is currently going through Parliament.
The new criminal offense will make it illegal for companies to supply tools designed to create non-consensual intimate images. Kendall said this would “target the problem at its source.”
The investigation by Ofcom is ongoing. Kendall said X could face a fine of up to 10% of its qualifying global revenue depending on the investigation’s outcome and a possible court order blocking access to the site.
Starmer has faced calls for his government to stop using X. Downing Street said this week it was keeping its presence on the platform “under review."
Musk insisted Grok complied with the law. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he posted on X. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
FILE - Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco, July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
